Product Details

Overview

Fire and Flames was the first comprehensive study of the German autonomous movement ever published. Released in 1990, it reached its fifth edition by 1997, with the legendary German Konkret journal concluding that "the movement had produced its own classic." The author, writing under the pseudonym of Geronimo, has been an autonomous activist since the movement burst onto the scene in 1980-81. In this book, he traces its origins in the Italian Autonomia project and the German social movements of the 1970s, before describing the battles for squats, "free spaces," and alternative forms of living that defined the first decade of the autonomous movement. Tactics of the "Autonome" were militant, including the construction of barricades or throwing molotov cocktails at the police. Because of their outfit (heavy black clothing, ski masks, helmets), the Autonome were dubbed the “Black Bloc” by the German media, and their tactics have been successfully adopted and employed at anticapitalist protests worldwide.

Fire and Flames is no detached academic study, but a passionate, hands-on, and engaging account of the beginnings of one of Europe's most intriguing protest movements of the last thirty years. An introduction by George Katsiaficas, author of The Subversion of Politics, and an afterword by Gabriel Kuhn, a long-time autonomous activist and author, add historical context and an update on the current state of the Autonomen.

Praise:

"The target audience is not the academic middle-class with passive sympathies for rioting, nor the all-knowing critical critics, but the activists of a young generation." —Edition I.D. Archiv

"Some years ago, an experienced autonomous activist from Berlin sat down, talked to friends and comrades about the development of the scene, and, with Fire and Flames, wrote the best book about the movement that we have." —Düsseldorfer Stadtzeitung für Politik und Kultur

About the Author:

The author, writing under the pseudonym of Geronimo, has been an autonomous activist since the movement burst onto the European scene in 1980-81.

About Gabriel Kuhn (Afterword):

Gabriel Kuhn lives as an independent author and translator in Stockholm, Sweden. His previous publications with PM Press include Life Under the Jolly Roger: Reflections on Golden Age Piracy (2010), Sober Living for the Revolution: Hardcore Punk, Straight Edge, and Radical Politics (editor, 2010), Gustav Landauer: Revolution and Other Writings (editor/translator, 2010), and Soccer vs. the State: Tackling Football and Radical Politics (2011).

About George Katsiaficas (Introduction):

George Katsiaficas is currently living in Gwangju, South Korea. A visiting professor of sociology at Chonnam National University, he is finishing research on East Asian uprisings in the 1980s and 1990s. A Fulbright Fellow, student of Herbert Marcuse, and long-time activist, he is the author of The Imagination of the New Left: A Global Analysis of 1968. His book, The Subversion of Politics: European Autonomous Social Movements and the Decolonization of Everyday Life, was co-winner of the APSA's 1998 Michael Harrington book award. Among his edited volumes are Liberation, Imagination and the Black Panther Party (with Kathleen Cleaver) and Vietnam Documents: American and Vietnamese Views of the War.

The long-awaited Volume 2 of the first-ever English-language study of the Red Army Faction--West Germany's most notorious urban guerillas--covers the period immediately following the organization's near-total decimation in 1977.

After the military coup in Portugal in April, 1974, the overthrow of almost fifty years of Fascist rule, and the end of three colonial wars, there followed 18 months of intense, democratic social transformation which challenged every aspect of society.

Nicolas Walter scorned the pomp and frequent ignorance of the powerful and detested the obfuscatory prose and intellectual limitations of academia. The items collected in this volume display him at his considerable best.

The first comprehensive collection of Gustav Landauer's writings in English, this valuable addition to the history of anarchism gathers more than 40 influential works by one of Germany's most prominent radical agitators.

Navigating the broad "river of anarchy," from Taoism to Situationism, from anarcho-syndicalists to anarcha-feminists, Demanding the Impossible is an authoritative and lively study of a widely misunderstood subject.

"An experienced autonomous activist from Berlin sat down, talked to friends and comrades about the development of the scene... and wrote the best book about the movement that we have." --Dusseldorfer Stadtzeitung fur Politik und Kultur